The University celebrated its Fifth Inauguration of Endowed Professorships on April 12, 2011.

Endowed Professorships are established to support the scholarship or research endeavours of distinguished professors. They are the most significant awards given to academics within the University.

"We are proud that, since they were first established in 2005, we have 54 Endowed Professorships at the University. We aim to create 100 Endowed Professorships and I am grateful to the community for its support of the University's goal," said Vice-Chancellor Professor Lap-Chee Tsui.

At this year's ceremony, a total of 12 new Endowed Professorships were established, including the Sin Wai-Kin Distinguished Visiting Professorship in the Humanities, a university-wide scheme in support of the appointment of distinguished visiting scholars in the humanities.

Also announced at the Inauguration was the establishment of the Zhou Guangzhao Professorship in Natural Sciences from the Zhou Guangzhao Foundation. It is the first time that an Endowed Professorship has been named after an academic on the Chinese Mainland. The occasion was also a milestone for the Foundation as it marked the first time it has given an award to a Hong Kong recipient.

For more about HKU's Endowed Professorships, please go to http://www3.hku.hk/ephku/.